Let’s take a look. Here we have a table that shows five test scores for a group of students. Let’s create a conditional formatting rule to highlight all test scores over 90 in green. To create a new conditional formatting rule, first select the cells you’d like to format. Then, select an option from the Conditional Formatting menu. When creating a new conditional format, you have two basic choices: you can start with one of the many presets that Excel includes, or you can define a new rule from scratch. In this case, the “Greater Than” preset in the “Highlight Cells Rules” category is a good starting point. Note that as we enter the value and select formatting, Excel creates a live preview of the formatting on the worksheet. Once we click OK, the rule is created and applied to our worksheet. We can test that the rule is working properly by temporarily changing a test score to a value greater than 90. Once a conditional formatting rule has been created, you can access the rule by selecting Manage Rules from the Conditional Formatting menu. If the current selection includes cells that have conditional formatting applied, the rule will appear in the Rules area of the window. If the current selection does not include cells with conditional formatting applied, the list of rules will be empty. In that case, switch the dropdown menu from the top of the window from “Current Selection” to “This worksheet.” We’ll look at how to add more conditional formatting rules to your worksheet in the next lesson.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
